Approachable Leader Gifts

'I'm not your fairy god mother...I'm your surrogate mother. Stand up straight and tuck in your shirt!'

Businesswoman Empowerment

'You could be a constant inspiration for us to come up with a plan to get a leg up on our competition...you're hired!'

How leaders fail

"He's not really much of a leader...he just has a lot of followers."

"Hmmm ... that's interesting. Now, what about ideas that don't suck - do you have any of those?"

A disgruntled employee chain-sawes hois boss's desk in two.Boss says:'Alright Smith, I'll stop referring to the employees as 'oopsy daisies'.'

"I can motivate everyone except myself."

"I'm sorry, but we're looking for someone who's more likely to be followed than following."

"The president demands that staff take responsibility for failures, and the multi-trillion deficit is down to YOU!"

'The shareholders have voted you off the board. We don't feel you're tough enough. On the bright side, you've won this year's Miss Congeniality award.'

"Serendipity is not a strategy."

Feedback should be sought for genuine reasons, not because you want compliments. . .

'I give this one about three months...'

'I have been hearing some disturbing comments about you, Parker, some of your employees think you're a nice guy!'

'The ultimate sign of success is when no one puts you on hold.'

"Do you have a minute, Bob? I'd like to speak with you about the concept of 'leadership'."

'I delegate, then I follow up.'

Someone needs to tell him that having Churchillian leadership skills requires more than a 10'' havana

'...And for the low visibility positions we can bring people on board who can, you know...do things.'

"The GOOD news is that 94 people want to attend the leadership training, the bad news is that 64 of them want to change the venue, 56 the time and 45 want to be course leader."

'I like to greet the new team members myself.'

'I tried that approach once, but my employees seized the carrots and attacked me with sticks.'

The little engine that could delegate.

Stand-up comic/ceo: 'A funny thing happened on the way to the board meeting...'

"Leadership ISN'T just about trying to be BETTER than everyone else!"

'This is impressive, Roberts, but I'm not sure that it qualifies as work-place leadership.'

"The team needs LEADERSHIP, anyone have a view on that?"

"Remember, Man of good Sense not here to do work on your behalf. Man of good Sense only here to help you on strategic level until you wise enough to overcome recession."

"He's got great leadership skills. Wherever he's taking us, it's got to be better than where we've been."

'We had no contingency plan for things going right.'

'It's really lonely at the top of a dot.com company.'

"If we're a team, the manager should take the heat!"

'A good leader can lead them to water, but a great leader can also make them drink.'

"I make it a point to hire people smarter than me."